Upsides and Downsides
by kibaxkaori
Summary: When news of Susan's death reaches Harry, he withdraws from the world. Who will come to drag him back? One-shot. Harry/Marcone/Thomas


**Hey, Dresden Files is kinda new for me, but I've been obsessed with it lately, and I just wanted to write a fic for it. **

**So, here's your warnings: GuyXGuyXGuy; Don't read if you don't like. Also, there's some brotherly love going around, so if you don't like that sort of thing either, you might want to hit the back button. For fans who like Susan, yeah, I killed her before her time was up, get over it. ^.^**

**Also, I don't own the Dresden Files, otherwise, this fic would have a whole bunch of wise-ass sarcasm that I just can't seem to manage.**

**This is based a few months after White Night, but before Small Favor. R&R! I hope you like.**

The moment news of Susan's death reached my ears, a part of me seemed to go numb.

Ramirez told me himself, that she and her partner had been killed in an ambush by some wardens. At first, I'd thought that I must have been hearing things. I mean, I hadn't heard anything about her in almost four years. Why should that change now? Then I'd seen the expression on Ramirez's face, like he was scared of what I was going to do. How I was going to react.

She was really dead.

I'd sat down on one of the old second hand chairs and put my face in my hands.

"Harry?" He'd asked slowly.

"Get out." I'd said.

"But-"

"I need to be alone." My own voice had scared me. It sounded cold even to me. He left.

No one had set foot in my apartment since then. I went around, taking care of Mouse and Mister, but I didn't really take notice of my surroundings. The phone had rung a couple hundred times until I had pulled the cord from it. Then, of course, came the rigorous poundings on the reinforced door, but I had already retracted my permission for anyone to enter the wards.

Sure, I knew this wasn't like me. The old me would have already taken off to track down the wardens who had killed Susan and given them the beat down of their lives. But I wasn't the old me. I felt empty, disconnected.

It had taken about a week and a half before they'd pulled out the big guns on the outside of my apartment. They tried everything. Psychic attacks, tangible magic, physical attacks that had been so loud that I figured they enlisted the help of a troll. But it was strange. Before, the door and my wards would have fallen like a sheet of paper to a pair of scissors. Instead, it seemed as if neither budged an inch. The insanely odd thing was that I was growing weaker by the day, and it still held.

I hadn't eaten anything but the odd granola bar here and there and one or two of Mac's ales. I wasn't suicidal or anything, at least, I thought I wasn't, but I just couldn't force myself to eat when Susan couldn't.

Then it all just stopped. All of the noise outside subsided into the silence and I sighed. Then there was a gruff knock on the door, if a knock could be gruff.

"Leave me alone." I said, not really caring if they could hear me or not through the door. Apparently they could, though.

"Dresden, let me in." It was the last voice I expected to hear, one of the last I _wanted_ to hear, really. I winced at the soft feeling of guilt that began to crawl around in my stomach, of a sort of betrayal. I remembered what I had been debating with myself about just before Ramirez had delivered his news.

"No." I spoke a little more loudly so he could hear me. I swore I heard a snort on the other side of the door.

"Don't be stupid, Wizard. I just need to make sure I won't have to clean your body up down here once you're done sulking. I don't need to deal with the White Council breathing down my back after I've just been signed into the accords. Open the door, Dresden. I won't force you out of your hole." Marcone promised.

That sounded like Marcone, all right. Only worried about the mess I would leave behind. It kind of disappointed me. I thought about it for a moment and then I lowered the wards. I was fairly sure that Marcone wouldn't try to talk me out of my mood, and a reply from him about my condition might make the others stop trying to bother me.

"It's open." I said hoarsely, my throat suddenly dry.

There was a loud screeching sounded as Marcone pushed hard against the door to force it open. I still hadn't gotten it fixed, and it was still hard as hell to get it open. When he managed to get it open far enough to step in, he turned around, speaking to someone who had been with him in the doorway; Hendricks, I supposed. I heard a grunt and saw a big hand close around the handle of the door. Just before Marcone's bodyguard could pull the door closed for his boss, I saw a tall, lean shape slip through the door. I scowled. It was Thomas. The last person I wanted to see, right up there with Marcone himself, in fact.

As Hendricks pulled my front door closed without seemingly any effort, both Thomas and Marcone turned to search my barely lit apartment for me. There wasn't much to see. I wasn't the sort who got messy when they were depressed, which is what I guessed I was. Plus the fairies had come to clean while I slept-although that was rarely-, so any messes that did get caused had been cleaned up. At night I had been letting Mouse and Mister out to prowl the streets, trusting them to take care of themselves. It was one such time now, and I was alone in the apartment, but for the two recent intruders. I wondered why Marcone had come at such a late time, then shook my head, deciding it didn't matter.

I was leaning back on my couch in front of the fireplace, which I had just thrown a log in a few minutes previous, and, after a second, their eyes focused on me and I wasn't sure what to say. I'd taken well enough care of myself, while I'd hidden myself away, sans the food, but I supposed that I must've looked fairly bad, because when they saw me, both their eyes widened.

"God, Harry." The words came out in a whisper from Thomas' mouth.

"What?" I asked, pulling myself up.

"Why are you doing this to yourself?" Marcone asked slowly, a tone to his voice suggesting that he was truly confused. I wondered why he would even care for an answer.

"You don't know? Then why are you here?" For some reason, I'd thought that Ramirez might have sent for them.

"Murph was worried, Harry. When she hadn't heard from you for a while…" Thomas shrugged. He came a bit closer, but stopped when I began to tense up. "Brother," I credited Marcone with how he didn't react to the information that Thomas was my brother. "Brother, you've got to tell me what's wrong."

"No, I don't." I said stubbornly.

"Please?" Thomas said softly. I saw how much it was hurting him that I was hurting and he didn't know why. My heart panged. I sighed.

"Susan…She's dead." I closed my eyes. I heard Thomas's intake of breath, and oddly enough, Marcone's as well.

"Why aren't you out there killing someone then, Dresden?" Marcone asked the question in a reasonable tone of voice; like that course of action would have been the most normal thing to do in the world. For once, my head agreed with him. But my heart didn't. And that was what had put me in this mood. I growled and jumped up from my seat. Thomas and Marcone didn't move.

"I don't know! I don't know why and it's killing me!" I pulled at my hair and paced next to the fireplace, until, on my second round trip, Thomas's hand reached my shoulder. I stopped in my tracks and leaned against the fireplace, back first. Thomas hadn't said anything yet. He looked as if he felt my pain, but, at the same time, I knew it wasn't the same. That the way he'd felt when he thought Justine was dead was different than how I did because… I put my palm to my forehead and squinted my eyes closed.

"I felt relief. I felt relief when I heard that she was dead. Why? I felt sad, and crushed, and lonely, but I felt relief over all of it!"

There was silence. Then Thomas spoke. It wasn't accusing, or angry, but his voice sounded so understanding that I felt like I would cry. And that just wouldn't be right.

"Perhaps…perhaps you felt released from the bond you two held. Perhaps her death released you from the burden of having to remain faithful to her. I know…you wouldn't have felt right loving someone else without that bond being broken." I listened to him, and the words sounded right, not like an excuse.

"Or perhaps you already love someone," Marcone said, stepping closer to us. ", and you felt like she was giving you complete permission to love them, without having to worry about how she would feel." His voice wasn't scathing or insulting. In fact, it almost seemed like Marcone was trying to help me. But that wouldn't be possible; he wouldn't do something like that without there being something in it for him. I must have been imagining it, also, that he sounded almost sad. When I looked up at him, his expression stabbed at me. He looked lonely, almost, and disappointed. I wondered why. We were talking about my own dysfunctional love life after all; it shouldn't affect him.

God, why was I so confused?

I stepped away from the fireplace just enough that I could look into the flames. They were right. But they didn't know how right they were. I felt like one burden had just been pulled off my back to be replaced by another, and the new one was almost heavier. Now I just felt guilty that I wasn't upset because of my grief over Susan's death, but that I felt relief over it. Guilty over how I'd fallen in love with someone other than her while she'd still been alive. She'd left me, told me that things were over between us, but I just couldn't accept it. I felt like I'd betrayed her. Lied to her. But I didn't feel regret for the love I felt toward them. I couldn't.

I loved them.

And here they were, standing beside me.

I don't remember when or how I fell in love with Thomas or Marcone. Maybe it was when they both saved my life not so long ago, or one of the many times they'd had my back.

Yes, Marcone was my enemy, had been my enemy, but, every time I'd asked, he'd been there. He was a criminal but, even if I'd had to give him something or do something for him in return, he'd helped me. One could even say that he'd gone above and beyond what I'd asked of him many times, and didn't the fact that he was standing here right now prove something? I more than respected him for that. And I would do almost anything for him if he asked because of it. Even if I pretended otherwise.

And, my brother. It had taken a while for me to figure out what I had for him was more than brotherly love. Perhaps it was when Murphy accused him of being a murderer, when I'd become so irrationally angry at the very idea, that I'd realized it in part that I loved him. Or before that, when he'd disappeared, when I'd felt so lonely because I hadn't heard from him in so long. Or maybe it was when I pretended to be his boyfriend all those times I walked into his salon. On top of it all, he was a White Court vampire. A succubus. There were so many reasons why I shouldn't love him; why I shouldn't love either of them. It had taken me so long to figure out that I was sure I loved both of them.

And I was sure that neither of them loved me back.

There was no way either of them would love someone like me, someone so uncultured and crude and violent. Thomas surely still loved Justine, even if he could never be with her. And I was his brother, for God's sake. Marcone must still hate, or at least strongly dislike, me. They were both so dignified and… They would never love someone like me.

But now I had to tell them I loved them.

If my relief over Susan's death was why Thomas and Marcone said it was- and I believed that they were right-, I would be betraying Susan's memory if I didn't. She had let me go, set me free to find someone else that I could love. She would hate me if I clung to her death as an excuse to hide my feelings for them. I kept my head tilted down and cast a quick glance to my peripheral vision to see Thomas looking at Marcone worriedly. Marcone shrugged, but I couldn't see his expression clearly without turning my head.

I heard Thomas draw in a breath to speak. "Harry…Who is it? Is it Murphy?" He asked quietly.

I raised my head to look at him and turned around to lean my back against the fireplace wall once again, a bitter smile beginning to show in the quirks at the corners of my lips. I was about to fuck my life up so badly I wouldn't be able to see straight, if my little depression of the past week was anything to go by, at least. I could feel my bare, burned left hand rub against my pants leg. It was trembling. I looked at my right hand and saw it was shaking as well. I clenched both into the tightest fists I could manage and shook my head.

I lifted my head again and met Marcone's, John's, eyes. Then I switched my gaze to Thomas's face. They both looked confused at my reaction. I realized that they must have seen my shaking hands and, as I thought about it, I couldn't remember if either of them had seen me outwardly scared before, behind all my bravado. And I was scared as hell. I took a steadying breath.

"No, it's…It's you. It's the both of you. I…love both of you."

There was silence. I could hear my overly loud breaths and briefly noted that it sounded like I was having a small anxiety attack, with how short and jerky they sounded. Thomas looked like he was about to joke off the confession, before he saw my face. His mouth audibly clicked shut. John looked truly shocked for the first time I'd ever seen. I kept waiting for the disgust to show on their faces, for them to start laughing and reject me, but they didn't speak.

I remember how hard I'd been trying to convince myself to tell them how I felt when Ramirez had come to tell me Susan was dead. It was a moot point now that it was out in the open, though. I knew there was no chance of them returning my feelings, so why were they…

"I-I know it doesn't mean much to either of you. I know it's too much to ask for this not to change anything, but I felt like- Susan wouldn't have wanted me to-" I was cut off from my mumbling as two pairs of hands captured me and held me against the wall I was already leaning against. A soft but aggressive pair of lips sought out mine while another, intoxicating pair kissed at the base of my neck. I shuddered in surprise and pleasure and gasped for air when the lips released me. I opened the eyes I'd never realized I'd shut and looked up to see John standing above me, his right leg pushed in between mine, and Thomas curled around my side, his arms latched around my waist. My head spun.

"What-? I didn't- I thought you-"

"You thought we didn't feel the same." John stated in a huskily deep voice. "Well, that's a given, seeing as how we're not nearly so easy to read as you are, Harry." He drew my name out as if he were twirling it around his tongue.

"And just because you're my brother wouldn't stop me from having a relationship with you." Thomas added, his lids half-mast in pleasure.

"But why? And what about Justine, Thomas?" I don't know why I was debating their actions so hard. I guess I thought they were playing with me, because, really, why else would they want me?

"Why not, Harry?" John asked, he breath tickling my jaw line as he leaned over me. "You're more handsome than you think, and you're one of the few people who have challenged me in a long time. I like you. A lot. And I have for a long time."

It wasn't exactly a declaration of love, but the way John said it, so confidently, nearly made me melt. I met Thomas's eyes as he began to speak.

"Last year, when I saw you and Lara get trapped on the other side of the portal to the Nevernever, just before the bomb went off, even while I was holding Justine, I realized just how important you were to me. I don't know how the true love bond really works, but the one holding me and Justine together faded a little while after that. It doesn't matter, though. I just know that I want you."

Thomas leaned forward and pressed a hot, open-mouthed kiss to my lips, and I moaned as his tongue reached it's way into my mouth. I couldn't even try to battle for dominance of the kiss as he traced the inside of my mouth. When the hands on my body began to move, my legs collapsed. Thomas and John supported me. They pulled back for a second, to let me get a breath and I gasped and shook. I didn't ever remember a white court vampire's kiss being as potent as Thomas's.

"So, how far are we taking this?" John said smoothly, as unruffled as ever. Suddenly, I had the urge to see him and Thomas kiss, to see the calm crime lord finally ruffled.

"Bedroom's…over there." I gasped.

We stumbled over to the door I had pointed at as the two of them once again attacked me. I quickly found myself thrown onto my small bed, with two extremely gorgeous men hovering above me. I hadn't realized when my tastes had turned for the same sex, but it must have been around the same time I fell for these two. It didn't take long for them to divest me of my clothes, while they were still fully dressed. I tried to reach out and touch them, but Thomas took and held one arm above my head while John took the other and did the same, being careful to avoid jostling my burned hand too much.

I shivered under their gazes and felt my member growing hard quickly. John slowly ran his free hand down my chest, avoiding my nipples and tracing my abs. My breath caught. Thomas straddled my right leg and latched his mouth onto a nipple creating a mixed feeling of pleasure and pain as he nipped and bit.

"Ah" I moaned lightly and arched my back.

"So you want us, do you?" John breathed in my ear. "We'll both take you at the same time, filling you to the brim with our cum. You'll like that won't you, Dresden?" He hissed. I gasped at the image that filled my mind and with surprise at John's words. I had never taken him for one to talk dirty during sex, but I liked it.

"Ah, John!" I cried, as his hand rubbed my erection. I was already so hard it hurt, and I would have been embarrassed had it not been for the fact that it felt like the two of them were worshipping my body, with Thomas latched one of my nipples and his free hand working at the other, and with John running his hand along my side and down to my inner thigh, following the path with light kisses.

As John narrowly avoided my erection, I growled. "Stop- Ah- Stop teasing me!"

"Ah, but where would be the fun in that?" Thomas grinned as his face suddenly appeared above mine. He was still just as calm as John, while I was a panting mess. After a second, Thomas's face became serious as he asked me a question, and John stopped momentarily in his ministrations to hear my answer.

"Are you sure you want this? Us? I can't speak for Marcone, or John, if he'd rather-" Thomas sent a playful look at John and the man smirked and nodded. "-but I'm possessive with my true lover's, Harry. If we do this, it will be for the long run, at least with me."

"With me as well." John said seriously.

I looked up at the both of them, through a haze of pleasure, but my answer wasn't affected by it in the least. They were offering me everything I wanted.

"Why wouldn't I?" I grinned, then they both attacked me in earnest. For a minute, as they stripped themselves of their clothing, I got my wish as John and Thomas kissed and John almost lost his balance in Thomas's arms at the ferocity of it. When they parted, John looked a little lost, but then he shed the rest of his clothing and moved down my body. The next thing I knew, John had swallowed me whole and Thomas's fingers were in my mouth. I sucked on the fingers obediently, having an idea as to what use my saliva would be put to.

Thomas pulled his fingers from my mouth and slid down to join John. I felt a soft probing at my entrance just beneath the hot pleasure surrounding my member, and soon Thomas's finger was thrusting in and out. Another joined it, and then another, but I didn't feel any real discomfort until John pulled away from my erection. Thomas scissored his fingers and I cried out as an intense pleasure shot up my spine, his fingers jolting against something inside of me.

"Please." I gasped. There was a pause in the movement of the fingers and Thomas drew them out of me. I closed my eyes and whimpered at the feeling of emptiness.

"You or me?" John asked Thomas.

"You. I'll keep him distracted." I felt Thomas slither back up beside me and he pressed his lips against mine, making me melt against him. He sucked on my tongue and pulled it back into his mouth and I groaned. I felt John press against my entrance, but I focused on Thomas's tongue, until John had pressed all the way in. I arched and pulled back from Thomas. I didn't feel any pain, but I felt completely full. It was the strangest feeling, but it was one of the best I'd ever had. When I rocked my hips a little, John started moving, eliciting gasps from me. I pulled Thomas back down to my mouth and ran my newly free hands lightly over his sides. I clutched at his back as John hit that spot in me that made me see stars.

When Thomas pulled back for a breath, I frowned, and gasped when John hit that spot again.

"Thomas… Ah! You…too? Please." I couldn't phrase my question any clearer than that, what with my harsh breathing and gasping and moaning, but Thomas managed to get my point and moved down to touch John on the shoulder.

"He wants both of us, John." Thomas grinned.

John smirked that self-satisfied smirk of his. I tried to glare at him, but it just wasn't possible. With his pulsing cock still thrusting inside of me, I just couldn't manage it. "Already? Well, aren't you insatiable, Harry."

"Shut. Up!" I threw my head back and moaned as John thrust particularly hard on my second word. The next thing I knew, John had flipped us around, so that I was on top, and he had me bouncing in his lap, my palms flat on his chest for support. I felt Thomas slide an arm around me from behind and felt his other hand as it brushed against my ass, guiding his cock to my already occupied entrance. John slowed his thrusts to a stop so that Thomas could push himself into me.

Without Thomas occupying my mind, or perhaps because it was the second cock to be pushed into me, it hurt. It felt like I would tear apart from the inside, but I clenched my teeth, knowing I would get used to the feeling in a second. The two cocks inside me pulsed differently, but the friction of them both nearly drove me mad with the sensation of it all. Once Thomas was all the way in, he wrapped his other arm around my chest and pulled me flush against him. The change in position helped me adjust quicker, and I pushed down onto them.

John pushed into me and Thomas pulled almost all the way out, then Thomas slammed all the way back in and John pulled almost all the way out and they started to alternate quickly in their thrusts. I screamed as they kept up a quick and hard place, and I enjoyed every bit of it. My body trembled and I would have fallen if Thomas hadn't held me up. I was so close. Then John roughly began pulling at my erection.

When I finally came, my vision went black. I would have thought I'd passed out from the pleasure had I not felt John and Thomas come inside me. I felt the warm jets of thick liquid coat my insides and that only made my orgasm more intense. I fell on top of John as Thomas wavered and maneuvered himself to fall to the side. We said nothing for a while, then, catching out breath in each other's arms.

"We're going to have to find you a bigger bed, Harry." Thomas said hoarsely.

I grunted and John snorted in amusement.

"Damn." John said after a pause.

"What?" I asked tiredly.

"I told Hendricks to wait outside for me."

An image of some breed of large dog waiting for their owner to come back home ran through my mind and I laughed.

"I hope you left him a bone to chew on, 'cause I'm not letting you leave right now." I said, tightening my right arm around him.

Thomas and John just laughed, but John didn't make a move to get up.

We fell asleep together.


End file.
